Operation: Brooding Tome
by Luke Danger
Summary: Sometimes, the Commander initiates some quite questionable missions. And when a Covert Action allowed an opening for only two XCOM operatives to go after a general, the Commander's choice of operatives had to pull off a textbook suicide mission. So not the drama for Team Possible, right?
1. Chapter 1: Introduction

Sometimes, being the girl who could do anything was just asking for it.

And as the _Avenger_ entered the airspace of what was once Belarus, Kim Possible sat in the briefing room with her lover, Ron Stoppable. Because of course, they were the ones that the Commander chose for the mission ahead.

"This is going to be a tough one," Bradford started as he clicked to the next display of the briefing, showing an ADVENT General's mugshot. "Betos has forwarded us the details. General Karten is going to be touring the old tunnels near his base to find a place to test the new hazard armor he's pushing, which means we have a short timetable to neutralize him while he's away from his oversized garrison."

Not the kind of mission Kim liked. Sure, she knew it was war, but outright assassination had always left a bitter taste in her mouth. But these were dark times, and in the past months she had come to accept the brutality of war - or would have, if previous experience hadn't. Not that the briefing stopped for her introspection.

"Thanks to the previous covert action, the Skirmishers have an opening for us, and your brothers," he nodded to Kim, "are making their way to the rendezvous, but they won't be able to help you on the op."

"Alright, why's that?" Ron asked as he folded his arms. "Having those two as backup would be great. Heck, why is it just us two for this one?"

Central sighed. "Because while the twins were able to help the Skirmishers get you an access point, you have to infiltrate and they're already compromised. No blasting your way through security, you have to drop into the tunnels undetected."

"So we take our time, we creep around with full squads often enough," Kim pointed out as she tilted her head.

"Normally, yes, but your access point is a secured tunnel entrance. Nothing else available, and if it stays open for too long it'll trigger an alert. We only have long enough to get a single fireteam inside."

"And getting _out?_ " Kim asked as she tilted her head.

"The Skirmishers are preparing an attack since they'd like the hazard gear he's prepared. Neutralize the general and his bodyguards, and the area's heavy hitters will be gone. They'll have a clear path to sack the confused base before ADVENT sends in a battleship. You're welcome to assist with that, but the priority is completing the mission. They'll share some supplies with us later."

 _If we can pull this off,_ Kim thought. She and Ron were some of the best fighters with XCOM, but the two of them against a poor man's dozen high-end ADVENT and alien units? Highly maneuverable Archons, stupidly durable Andromedons, and a _Sectopod_?

She really hoped the new Storm Gun that Shen and Tygan put together was all that, because she was going to go through its ammo like she wasn't going to see tomorrow. And given the details of the sitch...

"Question," Ron raised a hand. "Will we have time to detour to blow up the local ADVENT Burger factory after the mission?"

Central grinned and Kim rolled her eyes as he answered. "Call it a bonus objective if you have munitions and time to spare."

"And we have to take out every ADVENT unit in the area?" Kim asked to get it back on track and away from their mutual hatred.

"Effectively, but given the general will have comms to his units, they'll be hunting you so you'll have to deal with them regardless."

"Just kill a mech that wiped out entire tank platoons," Kim shrugged. "So not the drama."

"Yeah, not a lot…"

Bradford just nodded. "Your kit is already prepared; Shen's adapted your Talon rounds to the Storm Gun, and Wade's put together some mimic variant - calls it a 'Holo-Kim'?"

She smirked. "Yeah, that'll work."

"And me?"

"You get the medikit, since you'll be using those powers of yours…"

 _And the Lotus Blade,_ Kim silently added as she glanced to him. "Anything else?"

"Nothing else. I'll be monitoring from the Avenger, but comms may break up down there. Good luck you two."

"Well, considering the bad luck we had to roll _this_ mission…"

Kim wouldn't have voiced it, but she had to agree with the sentiment Ron shared. And going by Central's wince, he agreed. Then again, Bradford didn't have to make those hard decisions anymore. His almighty commander was around for that.

XXXXX

Firebrand's flying was smooth as always, leaving the two to contemplate the mission ahead. Or, true to form for XCOM, gossip to keep their nerves down.

"So I caught Outrider and Mox alone in the range…"

Kim sighed. "Ron, how many times do I have to tell you - they're friends, not _dating_."

The mystical monkey master turned Templar psionic shrugged. "Hey, I mean, we said the same thing for so long…"

"Give them twelve stinkin' years, then maybe there'll be a kiss…"

He shrugged. "What can I say, I'm a sucker for the classics." Then he paused, mouth tightening as he found himself considering. "Though uh, do hybrids even _have_ …"

"Nope nope nope _nope_ ," Kim started, " _Not_ having that discussion. And I doubt they'll like you asking either."

He shrugged. "Guy can wonder though. What do you think, Firebrand?"

"I think you'd better check yourself, monkey boy," she answered over the intercom. "And hang on, I need to lose some patrol scouts in the clouds - going to get choppy!"

"So're we…" Kim muttered as she glanced at the sword tied down next to her in an inactive state. So much had happened since contact with aliens, and as she rubbed the bracelet on her wrist she reflected on how much that had changed her too. She was no stranger to combat, but now she had grown accustomed to simply gunning her opponents down or hitting them with enough force to remove limbs.

That bracelet perhaps was the best analogy - when Wade had given it to her for their mission to stop Motor Ed's work for Gemini in Egypt during the mind washer incident, she had said she would never use it against living opponents. But the modified Centurion Bracelet was too useful against tough targets, deploying into a gauntlet that enhanced her strength tenfold while preventing Newton's Third Law from shattering every bone in her arm when the punch connected. When the time came to fight aliens, she was able to use it to allow her natural skill at hand-to-hand to excel.

Of course even then, she and Ron had been given las-carbines and frag grenades to round out their arsenal, though Ron quickly dropped it in favor of a pistol to give him room for his mystical powers. And they went into battle, leading Strike-One into the thickest fighting as other strike teams operated elsewhere, trying to keep panic contained even when the aliens went towards simply wiping cities from the face of the Earth.

The screams of men, women, and children alike being mercilessly slaughtered by Floaters and god knew what else flashed through her mind. Not that you would see Floaters anymore; no, those bio-mechanical horrors that were once Mutons had been encased in techno-angelic frames and became Archons.

She felt her hand gripping around the knee guard of her plated armor. So much had happened in twenty years, and she spent most of that in a villain's damn stasis tank…

" _We're coming up on the drop point!"_ Firebrand called suddenly, shaking her from her introspection. "Check your gear and give 'em hell you two!"

"No big," Kim answered, trying to put on a smile, but couldn't keep it steady as she rose and loaded her weapons. Talon rounds; perfect for exploiting critical weaknesses if she could get a good angle on them… and she had far too much experience with that even before she started shotgunning for XCOM.

Ron however only carried one visible weapon, an alien pistol, one they had taken from the Hunter's corpse. She'd given it to Ron, since he had done really well against that Chosen. The Hunter was good at stealth, but not so good at dealing with an angry Templar whose mad running away skills were also mad _charge your face_ skills. That, and the Hunter probably couldn't understand how Ron dodged his defensive shots.

But if there was one thing she had learned, no matter how advanced the tech got, no matter what crazy mind powers arose… there was still room for the basic average girl to make her mark. Jane Kelly was just the latest example that had made fame for herself.

 _Wish she was with us,_ Kim thought as she slid the fusion blade into the back mounted sheath, but it was a two man mission. No big, right?

XXXXX

Being the Mystical Monkey Master had a bunch of downsides, even with the awesome displays of power that had come with it.

For one, Ron had become far more exposed to the currents of the world's energy - ley lines of raw power that weaved throughout the world, taking numerous forms from psionics to mystical monkey power. But like many things, there was a degree of finiteness to it, and ancient lore had faded away into obscurity only to become powerful through the same.

Now that ADVENT had an entire network set up to draw upon the world's energies, that left far less for others, which had brought Ron's powers down dramatically. And there went Ron the Man. Again. At least this time it wasn't Kim who had to save him - nah, it was just Geist who pulled him into that strange cult. Then again, guy's gotta pay his tab someday, right? Plus, Geist helped him come to terms with the changes that had been done while he was out of it…

And it served as a reminder of Ron's origins - of what he was before his mystical powers had taken primacy. The skills he never realized he had. The mad running away skills that kept him from being turned into a stain on the ground by every supervillain's doomsday laser, and now from ADVENT mag rifles and plasma cannons.

That had also given him a handle on the whole horizontal sneaky aspect of stealth as he and Kim were crawling over a roof to their insertion point. It was the same basic configuration as most ADVENT buildings; black carbon over alien alloy superstructure. It kept a roof up, but unfortunately not against explosives. Particularly plasma grenades.

Kim put her hand behind to get him to stop and Ron ended his crawl as they heard it. An ADVENT IFV rumbling down the street. While it was relatively fragile, they didn't want to tangle with it yet.

 _Keep it cool, once we're inside we can go loud when the time's right..._

Once the rumble ended, they moved forward slightly further to the edge of the roof and saw it. The access point to the tunnels beneath the city, whose history ADVENT would prefer people to forget.

Kim met his gaze and he nodded. Kim jumped down silently as Ron drew his pistol and kept overwatch, Kim using the Skirmisher-supplied access codes to open the hatch and once that was done, Ron jumped down himself through the open hole as Kim kept watch. A bluish purple aura surrounded him as he embraced his powers to slow the fall, and Kim followed as the hatch closed behind them.

"Athena 1-5 to Avenger," Kim said as she keyed her earpiece. "We're in position."

" _Affirmative,"_ Bradford's voice echoed into their ears. _"The ADVENT general should be somewhere in the area. Scout the area and take him out."_

"Here we go…" Ron inhaled as he looked around.

Most sewer systems weren't this large, but the need for shelters from supervillain - and later alien - attacks had encouraged the development of tunnels from the initial use as subways. Now some cities had whole tunnel systems that had been communities unto themselves - particularly when the Ethereals first attacked. Safe harbor became only more precious as battleships rained down death from low orbit.

 _Too low orbit,_ Ron smirked as a fond memory over China came back only to be interrupted as they heard a familiar and loud clanking.

"Down, down!" Kim ordered with a harsh whisper and the two lowered themselves. Across a chasm of old sewage, a hulking frame walked into view from a tunnel to their right, oversized glass canopy obscuring an alien rarely seen within.

The Andromedon - because Berserkers were caused too much friendly punching, but ADVENT needed a heavy unit. Where they had been in the original invasion was anyone's guess, and only raised a worrying implication of other alien fleets. Not that Ron liked those kind of thoughts, but still…

And then it was backed by two Archons, floating on their waists of hoverjets that could fart out missile storms like they had eaten too much Cow and Chow. The only good thing ADVENT had done was burning that place to the ground… _then they went for Bueno Nacho,_ he felt his hands gripping into fists.

"Too early," Kim muttered, cutting him off as he started to rise. "We go loud, they'll be on alert. We need to check for others."

Ron let her gently push him down. She was right - this wasn't the usual mission where they had a full squad and could just blast their way through with time to spare. Discretion had to be valor's watchword.

Glancing around, he noticed a section of tunnel to their left. What looked like it had once been a warehouse, maybe. "In there?" he pointed.

"Yeah," Kim nodded and gestured for him to move towards it.

They moved along, steadily and trying to avoid moving too fast lest they walk into another patrol of aliens. Across, the Andromedon and its two friends kept the patrol forward until, as the two prepared to investigate the warehouse, they began to move the other way. They were in the clear.

Unfortunately it quickly became clear that ADVENT had long since swept this part of the tunnels. There were remains of old ration bar wrappers, cans of soda and other goods, old crates, what was probably a leftover black market stall, and old forklifts. But nothing useful, or helpful to the mission.

"Great," Ron muttered. "That was a waste of time."

"We're not on the timer until we've gone loud," Kim pointed out as she held her Storm Gun over her shoulder. "Better to be careful since we can."

He tilted his head as he turned towards her. "Where was this decades ago when you leapt into a laser net?"

Kim had good self control, but this time she failed - narrowly - to stop it. And since she managed to get her hand over her mouth, it was a sort of half snort half scoff as she was grinning. Ron allowed himself to smile. Just another part of his essential Ron-ness.

Which made him look over his shoulder, knowing his luck the Sectopod would walk in and open fire. But there was nothing in sight and what marching steps they heard were too far away. They were safe in concealment for a moment.

"So," Ron continued as he glanced back as Kim had recovered. "Got an answer?"

"You're not going to take 'that's different', are you?"

He shrugged. "Can't throw stones… though I've got the proper protection now."

"Uh huh. C'mon, we need to keep moving."

They continued their sweep, but it was quickly clear that the section near their entrypoint was clear. They did find a number of cannisters, though, all with hazard labels.

"Looks like Karten's ready for his tests," Kim remarked as she knelt next to a gas canister to get a better look. "All empty, though."

"And we're not choking in poison gas," Ron added as he took a sniff, "so it wasn't used. Placing it early, but nothing usable where the Resistance can grab it?"

"You'd think he'd just leave some Troopers to keep an eye on it…" Kim rose and shook her head. "Sector's clear, let's move on to the other side of that chasm, see if we can't lay an ambush for that Andromedon."

Ron shrugged. "Works for me."

They made their way back towards the chasm, and as they stayed silent and alert Ron just kept feeling a sense of dread. Sectopod, Archons, Andromedons… all beefy alien units that took far too much firepower to put down. Both of them were great at chaining together knockouts and kills in melee, but that assumed the targets could be quickly brought down. Or the rest of the squad softened them up, like Abort with her grenade launcher.

 _Well, Kim can always double tap with the shotgun,_ he considered and suddenly he was a teenager again. The sidekick brought along for reasons even Kim sometimes had a hard time coming up with… other than the only one that mattered: their friendship.

 _Then again, we chose those missions,_ he decided as the odds weighed on him again. _Sure she pulled me sometimes, but I needed that. And we chose to get involved, this…_

"Hey KP," Ron started as they approached a rectangular block of stone that marked the end of the chasm. Their crossing point, an old floodgate control system. "You remember when we _picked_ our stupidly dangerous missions?"

"All too well," she answered as he saw her grimace, tightening her grip on her weapon. "But apparently Bradford's great commandy one ordained us to kill all the ayys alone…" her face twisted in disgust. "Ugh, next time I want to try Jane's moonshine, punch me. Pretty sure she put some mind control stuff in there."

Ron paused as they were at the archway before the floodgate… _block_. "How does it compare to Outrider's Chryssaweiser?"

Kim paused, tilting her head side to side. "On a scale of piss to Valhallan mead, I'll put it in 'I need morning after pills'."

Ron felt his nose twitch. Why Kim liked that disgusting Norwegian brew was beyond him, honeyed or not… _okay, happy thoughts!_ "So, go get shot up?"

"Yeah, may as well…"

The two climbed up the ladder, trading overwatch as they moved up, but they didn't hear anything save for some distant rumbling as the Sectopod or the Andromedon in the distance walked through some wall.

"So," Ron started again, keeping his voice down as they checked their drop down, all clear. "Assuming we get out of this, maybe get a few days away from the insanity? Just come up with something to tell Bradford."

His lover smirked, casually holding the storm gun to the side so she could wrap her free hand around the back of his neck. "Oh, that's easy. We tell him we're doing some… _bond_ training. Seriously high level stuff. The kind Outrider and Mox _aren't_ doing."

Ron felt himself grinning. "Booyah."

Kim let go and they slid down the ladder. The other side was more of the same, but they were at a bend. Ahead was a passage to the right, what was probably maintenance for the specific pipelines to different districts. And to their direct height past an archway was the track of tunnel that they had spotted the first Andromedon-led pod, but they didn't appear to be present, likely at the far side of the tunnels on their patrol.

 _So far so good,_ Ron thought when suddenly they heard stomping, and around the second corner a familiar - maybe the same? - hulking frame containing an oversized glass canopy of acid and its two rocket-torso backup dancers with boom sticks that would make any old school henchman feel inadequate.

They stood looking at each other for a moment to comprehend what had happened, then violence ensued.

"Me and my big head," Ron groaned as he charged his Tempest Gauntlets to attack the Archon moving right past him.

XXXX

 **[End Chapter]**

 _This is a novelization, with liberties for the sake of narrative flow, of a mission I ran in XCOM 2: War of the Chosen that had the SITREP 'Fireteam', which meant only two soldiers for the mission. With the above opposition. Probably some of the best fun in XCOM I had in a long time, all from a mission I was utterly dreading due to the SITREP. Since I've been working on a Kim Possible character pack for a while, and in this playthrough Kim and Ron were my (Level 3 bonded) Colonels… they got the job._

 _So for this, I'm working on a sort of loose mix of the two series history as I did not want to sit down and do a full definitive history. Still, I hope there's at least enough for it to make sense and hints of greater things._

 _I also took liberties; my first efforts to try to be closer to the XCOM combat was rather stilted, plus I didn't remember every action well enough to do it well. So I pretty much tossed out the game mechanics as far as the fight was concerned even if I tried to keep some elements of it._

 _Also before starting the mission's action I'd like to thank Neo the Saiyan angel and Snow Drifter for helping with this – I really appreciated the second set of eyes on it._


	2. Chapter 2: Operation Brooding Tome

Fight or Flight - the age old human response to danger. But trying to decide between the two was often what caught people in crisis - a self-inflicted stasis trying to figure out what to do. For those with experience, it was also their chance to react.

Kim had reacted first, leveling her plasma shotgun and loosing a burst straight into the face of an Archon flying towards her. Ron caught it with psi blades as it passed, only to have to turn to defend against a second as the first Archon charged towards her despite the blows. Kim was ready for it however, dodging to the side as the Archon aimed its lance at her. He missed, narrowly, allowing Kim a chance to switch.

Of course that took precious time, and the Andromedon was angling for shots as Ron ducked under his Archon on a parry. Kim had to keep aware of them, but her main focus had to be the wounded Archon still causing her problems.

It followed through with bringing its lance around as Kim had her shotgun catch on a magnetic clamp on her armor, allowing her to use both hands. Bringing the now active blade around, she managed to catch the lance by its head, the two sources of plasma meeting each other and locking together, crackling and sizzling as they did. The Archon roared at her before pulling back to disengage, and Kim turned with it.

Breaking off as a plasma burst shot overhead from the Andromedon, Kim hit the wall and pushed back to close in. She came in within the Archon's swing, avoiding the head and bringing the blade up from below, cutting into one of the Archon's jets and part way up the midsection.

That caused the beast to howl and accelerate into the air, crashing into the roof before falling down. Not that Kim had time to focus on that, hurrying towards the Andromedon as Ron was cutting into the second Archon with his psi blades. That Archon came around with a swing to hit the former sidekick, but as he dodged to the side so the Archon was between him and the Andromedon, there was a silvery-blue flash as Ron transformed the Lotus Blade from the necklace he kept it hidden as into its proper form.

The resulting strike, backed by Ron's powers, tore into that Archon's chest, rending the armor plating off and revealing the techno-organic horror inside. The Floater, still the same bloodthirsty savage that preferred to massacre hapless innocents than fight soldiers come to stop it. The arcing wave of psionic energy tore through it, blasting it apart from within as excess energy washed past and near-harmlessly into the Andromedon.

It was ready as Kim charged, releasing a burst of acid from its underslung attachment and forcing Kim to leap into the air to avoid it. As she came down, she brought the blade across its armor. It bounced off, but it left deep burns in the suit and she could hear the creature within howling.

"Tough armor, huh?" Kim wondered as she spun with the deflected blade in her left hand, bringing her right around. As she tensed it into as tight a fist as she could, she could feel the bracelet around it deploying. She had gloves, of course, but the Centurion Bracelet deployed around them from its place beneath the armor plates protecting her forearms. And she could feel herself shifting mid-spin.

Her fist connected to the mechanized suit's oversized canopy, much to its occupant's horror. Kim felt a pushback as her fist connected and her tenfold strength sent a crack propagating. The Andromedon punched back with its right side, swinging its weapon with it as Kim narrowly backed out of the way in time. A glancing blow, fully taken by her plated armor with little more than a token gash in it.

"Oh yeah, I'm feeling it!" Ron called as he had absorbed the power from the Archon he beat and turned to finish off the second one, a single pistol shot tearing into the other target as it was stuck in the tunnel's roof, then he turned towards the Andromedon.

He didn't close in: while his powers could handle the acid, he had a better target as Kim leapt back. A bullet from his sidearm tore into one of the Andromedon's pressure pumps, springing yet another leak and causing the suit to almost take a knee.

"Hit it!"

She didn't need to be told twice, dropping the fusion blade to quick draw the Storm Gun and unload two bursts of plasma into its damaged armor. The green beams tore into the suit, both where it was armor and where the canopy had cracked, but the biggest damage happened in the cracks. The glass canopy exploded, sending the orange glass flying in every direction as both humans shielded their faces, then the Andromedon collapsed over.

Winded by the sudden and extensive exertion and needing to recover her weapon and reload, Kim did that as Ron checked the other corner. They had a moment to get their bearings again. The last thing they could afford was to lose their situational awareness.

Unfortunately, that had given their foe time. The Andromedon itself was dead, but the damaged shell that was once its cybersuit still had fuel and came back to life, driven by a backup AI. Both were ready for it to charge them again, to try and pummel them to death with nothing more than brute force and a trail of acid left behind.

"Hey, he's running away!" Ron complained as he finished checking the passage next to the chasm. It was gone by the time Kim had reloaded and he had brought Darkclaw around.

"Don't let it escape!" Kim called as the two rounded the corner and closed in - the shell was legging it with surprising nimbleness given it was heavily damaged, but to say the suits were tougher than the pilots was an understatement. She was closing, she just needed one chance to double-

Loud snarls and stomps cut that thought off as the two moved ahead. The shell of the Andromedon had ran back to the end of the corridor where the tunnels opened up to another underground warehouse. The intersection immediately ahead linked the edge of the chasm to that warehouse and the corridor they were in now.

It also gave a clear path for another pod - a second Andromedon and two more Archons.

"Ah great!" Kim growled as they strode in. They were _not_ in a good position for that to happen!

Finishing her original plan, Kim fired and two bursts of plasma flechettes tore into the shredded Andromedon suit, ripping into the suit's electronics. It wasn't Bluescreen, but when Talon Rounds hit soft components it was devastating whether you were a biological or a robot. And the Andromedon's shell was a healthy amount of both, rupturing and collapsing in on the new holes as the suit died.

But as one threat was gone, she was left standing in the open - but that was where Ron came in, making a show of flaring the power he had absorbed in the last fight to draw the attention of the three aliens. They opened fire at him as Ron turned the Lotus Blade into a shield, absorbing the worst of the attacks. He didn't have long though.

Kim capitalized on the opportunity, grabbing the hexagonal ball attached to her belt. _Please be one of Wade's good ones,_ she hoped as she hit a button and threw the modified mimic beacon into the mix.

It was - a holographic version of her suddenly materialized and opened fire, as well as an odd beeping that she would have a hard time hearing even without the plasma bursts flying.

"Okay, let's go!" Ron said as he was being pushed back and the Lotus Blade's form was glowing green.

"To the chasm!" she ordered as they rounded the intersection's door to the chasm. They were ahead enough that this was faster than going back the way they had come.

As they ran, Kim held the Storm Gun with only one hand gripped around the handle. Normally she would keep both hands on the weapon, but she wanted to give it as much heat-venting surface area as possible. She was going to build up heat far too fast in this mission, every bit of cooldown mattered.

As they came around, Ron transformed the Lotus Blade back into its concealed necklace. It was a powerful artifact, but its mythical metallurgy could only handle so much power… and alien weapons had plenty. Then she noticed…

"Ron, your armor!"

"Shrapnel," he admitted as he took cover behind a support column as they heard more plasma discharges in the intersection they abandoned. "And maybe some heat warpage…"

Which meant that one of the plasma rounds had gone far too close for comfort. Their plated armor was reasonably tough, but the dead Archons in the room behind them told them that all it took was one or two solid breaches to end their lives.

An Archon's triumphant roar turning into a confused snarl told her they were out of time. "Forget it, we need the first shot!"

"On it, overwatch!" Ron was ready with Darkclaw in hand, and Kim leapt to the top of the sewage controls for the high ground. Aiming the cooling Storm Gun, she braced herself…

The aliens came almost obligingly as they charged forward. The first Archon ate both of their shots as it tore into the monster. Kim's burst of plasma flechettes scoured its chestpiece, while Ron's shot had gone slightly wide of center mass. He did manage to hit one of the wings though, causing it to spin out as it came at him.

A second Archon shot for air superiority, and Kim tried to track both as well as the Andromedon that had charged towards the chasm's bridge so it had half-decent cover for a full firing arc. She ignored it for the moment - the Archon was the immediate threat as it charged towards her…

She was ready, letting go of the Storm Gun with her left hand so it was free to strike the incoming alien. The Centurion Bracelet was charged in time, and decking the Archon she sent it into an out of control spin away from the fight, momentarily out of it.

But whatever relief had come from that defensive blow vanished as she heard a scream that turned her veins to ice. She was able to turn her head just enough to see that the first Archon had evaded Ron's charged psi blades, knocked out of the usual route by the lucky shot and its own fast reaction to adjust its maneuver.

Then the monster's lance charged and cut into Ron's armor. Metal pieces and a splatter sprayed out.

The next thing Kim knew, everything was red.

XXXXXX

"Athena 1-5 come in. Damn it, Possible, report!" Bradford snarled into the comm system again, but they got nothing but static.

"It's not them giving us the slip again," a gravelly voice behind him remarked. "They've been cut off… can we raise the local Skirmishers?"

Bradford glanced back, then nodded. "You heard the Commander!" he relayed to the ensign on duty, and she hurriedly keyed the secondary channel.

Moments later, the familiar rasp of a male hybrid came over the Avenger's bridge. _"Avenger, this is Velites Actual, signal weak, over."_

"Acknowledged. Velites, this is Central. We lost contact with our team. Can you update us?"

" _ADVENT has gone to full alert and jammers are active. Sorry, Central, but we can't supply you with anything more than your own comms will tell you."_

"Understood, keep us posted and alert us the moment you hear something."

" _We will. Velites out."_

The comm channel closed and Bradford sighed. This was exactly what they had worried about during the meeting to even green light the mission in the first place.

"They're tough," the Commander growled as Bradford felt a hand on his shoulder. "What's that family saying, 'anything's possible'?"

"Yeah, that includes dying horribly."

The bridge went silent after that, and Bradford suddenly regretted saying it aloud. One of his jobs was to keep morale up - then again, nothing killed morale faster than lying about how well things were going only for the body bags to come home… or not, given the Avatar Project. Decisions, decisions…

"Central, Commander!"

He was jolted from his second thoughts and turned as Mox, in full armor, stepped onto the bridge.

"Mox?" the Commander asked.

"Our friends are in combat and isolated. As Firebrand is returning with our covert ops team, myself and others are preparing to deploy."

"Who?" Bradford asked, almost afraid.

"Besides myself; Outrider, Abort, Kelly, and Jocelyn are suiting up and loading ammunition."

"Just you five, no one else?"

"We agreed to be the proposed squad. Of course, it is the Commander's prerogative…"

"I appreciate the loyalty," the Commander started, stepping down from the center of the bridge and the holo-globe. "But this is all hinging on the success of the original mission. I know a full team can tear through those ADVENT units, but you'll have to fight through the rest of the base to get in there."

"We have been preparing for such battles," the hybrid noted as he folded his arms behind his back. "If you will not order others, then you have a volunteer team, including one of our heaviest gunners."

"ADVENT is going to be sending in reinforcements, and fast. You won't have long to get in there and pull them out," Bradford warned as he felt his head hurting. These were the kinds of calls he hated making - accept the loss of a few to avoid worse. 'No man left behind' was a motto of armies for centuries, but even then they would admit when a cause was lost. Then it became a promise to rescue the survivors at a later date.

Somehow, he doubted either of the two would be taken alive.

Mox seemed to pick up on his unease. "We understand the dangers of this mission, and that we may simply be too late by the time Firebrand is en route. But the support should be sent, if only to ensure a clear retreat."

"Commander?" Bradford asked.

The Commander sighed. "You like dropping these choices on me, don't you?"

"You're the one who can make them best," he answered. "Even when your soldiers disagreed."

"Any other time, any other squad, that might've been funny…"

Bradford felt his cheeks heating up. To be fair, the Commander was right; Kim had gone against orders during one of the worst terror attacks in the war to continue. They managed to evacuate civilians, but at high cost and in the process XCOM had become publicly known as they hung around too long and too overtly. The exact thing it needed to avoid being to make the calls it would have to - the same reason why the Council didn't directly control XCOM: so it had the room to make the needed sacrifices if it came to it.

Of course, they had tried to mitigate those, but against the sheer firepower of the aliens once they stopped playing around with Sectoids and Thin Men by dropping in Sectopods and unleashing Battleships on cities regularly, it was the best they could do.

That was almost certainly in the Commander's mind as the answer came. "Mox, tell the others to… no, I'll tell them. You have to stand down - there's nothing you can do at this point. It's all up to our team on the ground."

The hybrid frowned. "Commander, we can turn around if you decide to scrub the reinforcements. Firebrand is capable of…"

"She may also need an empty cargo hold to evacuate your comrades," the Commander continued, cutting him off. "I'm sending her back out, but not with a full squad."

Mox's eyes narrowed, then he exhaled. "Then you should inform the others, Commander."

Bradford managed to avoid wincing as he could feel the hybrid's bite. The Commander caught it too, but said nothing as they went to the armory.

 _Come on you two,_ he thought as he looked back at the comms. Still static. _Pull through, damn it..._

XXXXX

"Ow! Hey, not so hard!"

"Ron, you almost got _disemboweled_!"

"I'll be fine!" he insisted. "I haven't had decent Bueno Nacho in decades…"

Kim sighed as she finished applying the last of the medikit's material, leaving Ron to feel the soothing coolness over what had been burning hot and painful.

That Archon had managed to hit him with the business end of its plasma lance, and hard. He had never seen as many stars as he did after that blow. Luckily, he would live to see more: his armor had turned it from being horizontal bisection to _merely_ a nearly-fatal wound. And, once Kim caught the Archon's attention by leaping onto it and trying to rip its head off, Ron was able to focus his powers to hold himself together long enough for the two to deal with both of the Archons and the Andromedon.

Kim's Storm Gun was still giving off smoke from its barrel as it lay next to them, though the Andromedon had gone for a swing at Ron after being reduced to a shell. Luckily it missed, allowing them to finish it off, its husk offering a nice piece of extra cover as they worked the medikit Ron had on him.

It wasn't a full heal, of course. The medikit, particularly after being augmented with Viper enzymes that had been suitably isolated, was an incredible asset for medics as it acted as a sort of biofoam. Once activated by contact with air and human flesh, it would fill in the missing human material, allowing the injured victim to move more or less as they were before. And for Ron, this freed him from draining his focus keeping lunch inside. And allowed him to get his damaged armor closed enough for the rest of the mission as Kim took a step back.

"See?" he said as he warped the armor enough to cover the wound. Not ideal, but it would at least give him a chance against shrapnel. "Totally fine. Just a flesh wound."

"Ron, you almost died!" Kim snapped immediately. "That's more than a flesh wound!"

"Yeah well," Ron winced as his body reacted to the unusual circumstances it was in. "I made it… kiss it better, maybe?"

Kim sighed. "Ron, you're adorable, but sometimes…"

"Hey I…" then Kim was moving closer, cutting him off...

Only for a loud crash to interrupt, heads turning as a twenty foot tall warbot on two legs around its large and nearly rectangular head stomped forward. It was flanked by an ADVENT hybrid with a lance in hand to their left, a red colored MEC to the right. The Stun Lancer shouted something as it pointed towards them.

" _Hug that shit!"_ Not what it actually said, but Ron couldn't understand the alien language if he _tried_.

"Oh come on!" Ron groaned, "I'm taken!"

"Ron!"

"Yeah," he called as he grabbed Darkclaw and took some shots as the two fell back behind the archway next to the corpses of the first two Archons, "I'm movin'!"

They hit their target, but while Ron's shots managed to get past the armor, the pistol lacked the power to really damage what he had hit. Kim's were not much better, being mostly absorbed by the armor and, what wasn't didn't have the bite to weaken the warbot. The MEC dropped into an overwatch stance, but wasn't able to get a bead on either of them as they fell back while the Stun Lancer vanished into the intersection.

 _Not good not good!_ Ron thought rapidly as they made it further back. The MEC and Stun Lancer were going to be problems, but compared to what they had already dealt with they were soft targets.

The hard target that marched towards them and drew their reaction was the Sectopod, which advanced menacingly as it rose in stature. The colossal grey and black-accented war machine moved ahead like the numerous evil robots the two had destroyed by the car-load previously, the red sensor slits that acted like eyes glowing as it tracked both of them. Every step it took left an impact crater in the concrete ground and shook the entire tunnel.

Then it was close to them, its torso-like centerpiece opening in its lower half as it rose to its full height, a huge and red glowing cannon warming up as laser sights drew beads on everything in the cone before it.

"Wrath Cannon!" Kim warned before charging ahead, bellowing an order as she went, "Get the lancer!"

She stormed forward towards the metal grate bridge across the chasm of sewage, darting past the Sectopod to its left. The heavy MEC was firing at her with its mag cannon, but Kim managed to dance around the shots like they were more of Shego's plasma blasts.

Which gave Ron a clear shot on the other side of the Sectopod as he went to its right side. As he came around the corner he saw the Stun Lancer poking his head out from behind a metal fence that went to his waist, had he been standing up. And his mag rifle was already trained on the collapsing archway to the intersection.

"Whoa!" Ron shouted as he brought the Lotus Blade out and transformed it into a shield just in time to stop the magnetically accelerated slugs from doing what the Archon and Andromedon had nearly done earlier. He could hear the red-enveloped bullets impacting off of it, some of the glow getting past the Lotus Blade as it reacted against the sword-turned-shield's enchantment, but they stopped as Ron dodged to the left to get a good angle.

The ADVENT hybrid was ready for him, dropping its mag rifle to draw its titular lance and snarled something in the ADVENT language only for it to be cut off by a deafening explosion that left a crater where he and Kim had been just moments before.

"What was that?" Ron taunted as he brought the Lotus Blade around and the Lancer kept his weapon in the way, the electric charge along the truncheon stopping the blade from cutting through it. "'Bitter old criminals?'"

" _Kracsad!"_

That bit of alien language Ron _did_ know thanks to Outrider, and he made his disdain known clearly as they parried and the deflection put some space between them.

"Now that's just rude," he said before twirling the Lotus Blade with a flourishing to release an arc wave, which he followed up by striking the dazed Stun Lancer with a quick slash across the neck. Almost all the way through, and the hybrid collapsed to its knees choking out final words.

Ron allowed himself a moment to grin before another flurry of magnetic rounds shot past him and he turned to see… the Sectopod, having come back around to open fire on him.

"Ron, _move_!"

Kim's warning triggered a familiar response and the next thing he knew, he was running. Out of the intersection, past the Sectopod's legs, over the crater it had made, around the bend as Kim was pumping shot after shot out of her Storm Gun as fast as she had ammo, returning fire for him as he managed to narrowly stay ahead of the Sectopod's flurries of bullets. Or behind, when it had enough telemetry to try and lead him, causing him to stop and turn.

Unfortunately, the Sectopod's armor was tough, and while Kim was making dents into it she just didn't have the firepower to take it out outright. "This isn't working!" she shouted. "Ron, can you soften the armor or something?"

"Hang on let me…" Ron angled around only to narrowly dodge out of the way of another burst, the Lotus Blade landing next to him. "Nope, can't do anything but ruuuuunnnnn!" his last word dragged out as he boosted himself across the gap with psionics.

He made it across only for the Sectopod to seem to have enough and start marching across, charging its lightning capacitors to burst and was chasing him down.

"Ron, remember that hero movie? The one with the giant guy at the airport!"

"With the reference to Empire Strike- yikes!" Ron ducked as the Sectopod had crossed the gap and released the burst, narrowly getting clear of the electric arcs. As he hit the ground he saw Kim had been forced to jump off from her vantage point by the burst, but she rolled and looked across to him.

"Keep it distracted, then slam into the head when I say!" she called as she reloaded and aimed for the legs…

Ron felt his mouth opening with a smile as he realized what she was going for before he pushed himself forward as the Sectopod's mag cannon had reloaded.

It was the familiar song and dance of his youth - he was the distraction, Kim would use it to hit the bad guys hard. Most of the time it got interrupted, and sometimes Kim would be the distraction so Ron could work his magic like the time Drakken tried to melt Wisconsin. But it was the best chance as Kim aimed her shots now, keeping them pumped towards the Sectopod's legs even as the barrel of her Storm Gun was glowing red, and not just her preferred paint job either.

"I'm out!" Kim called as she fired one last burst into the legs as the Sectopod was standing at the edge by the metal grate. She had gotten her vantage point again on the block, and the Sectopod was now turning around towards her…

 _Oh no you don't!_ He thought as he charged towards it. Glowing blue and purple alike as he brought his power to bear, twin psi blades erupted from his Tempest Gauntlets as he leapt at it, swinging them through both legs. He managed to get through the first one, the second leg stopped it as the alien alloys absorbed enough energy to send Ron into a tumble like he had gotten stuck and the blades broke off, but it had done the job.

Landing on both feet and a hand, he saw the Lotus Blade next to him and smiled. He reached a hand out, "Here sword," he muttered partially out of habit, summoning the weapon to him as Kim jumped off from the top of the block as the Sectopod started perforating the entire area with magnetic cannonry, shots going everywhere from its sudden disorientation.

The Lotus Blade's enchanted metal was powerful, but its true strength had always been in the ability to change. It was how Toshimiru had carved the Yamanouchi Ninja School out of a mountain, and it was how Monkey Fist believed it would let him take over the world. Having used it himself, Ron doubted it would have worked, but stopping him then was better than having the JSDF able to say it fought there.

Ron caught the blade and channeled energy into it, transforming it into something a little more elegant for the job at hand, a little more civilized. If you were going to knock down an over gunned chicken walker, you don't do it with a katana that would shatter against any gaijin steel.

You did it with a big freaking log with handles attached, and Ron propelled himself into the side of the Sectopod, hitting it with an explosion that knocked him backwards into the air. He expected to hit stonework, but instead a familiar grunt came as he landed on the woman who caught him for the landing.

The Sectopod, meanwhile, had lost its balance entirely, one leg having given way as it collapsed and then it landed into the upper corner of the control block. The stonework crumbled as the alien murder-bot with an armor rating of 'impervium' and a defense stat of 'bullshit' pressed against it, and then the Sectopod lost its footing. Its collapse had been the last straw for the metal grate bridge it was standing on at the moment.

It gave way, metal screaming as it twisted and sheared apart, the Sectopod itself firing wildly in a vain effort to take its killers with it. Completely in vain - both were out of the way as it fell into the chasm with a stinky and quite brown splash, masonry crumbling down behind it.

As the noise subsided, Ron rolled off of Kim and pushed himself up to a sitting crouch as the machine was still screaming bloody murder at them.

"Well," Ron started, "That's…"

"Don't," Kim cut him off as she turned around. "Just… _don't_."

He shrugged, glancing around to make sure they were alone. They were, the decrepit remains of the heavy MEC sparking where it had been left to faceplant by Kim double-tapping it. Even then, his heart was still racing from the previous events. But he was used to that, and as he felt his breathing getting heavier he realized he had missed that too. It was even kind of fun, with a little hindsight.

"Let's not do this again," Kim sighed as she shook her head, looking at her overheated weapon.

"Oh yeah," Ron agreed as he glanced down and remembered that yeah, he nearly died. Twice now. "Worked, though."

"Sure but… a log, really?"

"We're a little short on ewoks right now, so…"

Then their earpieces buzzed and cleared… complete with a voice neither particularly wanted to hear.

XXXXX

"Central, we have them!"

Bradford exhaled, sagging back as the comm lines cleared. "Athena 1-5, do you copy?"

" _Sorry, we just killed a bunch of heavy units,"_ Kim's answer back was short and snappish. _"What is it, Central?"_

"We just got confirmation that the General has his extraction; coordinates are Hotel-6 on your map grid."

" _Right…"_ he then heard a loud explosion cut them off.

"What happened?" Bradford asked. Now that he thought about it, why had the jamming ended?

" _A Sectpod, four Archons, two Andromedons, a Lancer and a MEC…"_

" _Did we mention the Sectopod? 'Cause it just exploded all over!"_ Ron cut in before audibly grunting in pain. _"Though, the Archon did more…"_

"How bad?"

" _How bad?"_ Kim almost snapped. _"If it weren't for this armor, we'd both be_ dead _right now!"_

Bradford leaned back, but this was not the time. "Bitch about it after the mission - take out the General. The Skirmishers are waiting on your signal."

" _And reinforcements?"_

Bradford glanced to the hologlobe. "ETA is two hours, but we need the general dead _now_. The window is closing and he's getting ready to extract."

" _Fine,"_ Kim answered briskly. _"Anything else? An ADVENT Burger, maybe?"_

"Can it, Athena 1-5. Get the job done."

" _Yes 'sir'."_

"... and she just closed the comm line," the ensign said as she glanced up as the line turned to static. "Or she destroyed her earpiece."

Bradford sighed. Kim had always been headstrong. Even Global Justice had noted it in her dossier when the organization was folded into XCOM for the invasion, and their latitude was considered godlike when it came to their agents having quirks. XCOM had needed to inherit that, given some of its recruits.

"Alert Velites Actual that our team is alive and moving on the objective…" he stopped as the door opened. "Commander!"

"SITREP?"

"Fireteam is alive and the jamming's gone, and so's most of the ADVENT opposition." Bradford decided to not mention the insubordination.

The commander exhaled, shoulders sagging. "Good, good." A quick glance to the holo-globe, then the commander made the call. "Tell Velites they have an opening. The general should be down soon enough, so if they want to go early, now's the time."

"Opening the communications link," the ensign started and Bradford allowed himself to smile. Unless ADVENT got supremely lucky in the next few minutes, they just pulled this off.

XXXXX

After taking a moment to collect themselves, Kim and Ron moved further into the tunnels past the intersection, with Kim in the front. They just had a little more to deal with, and while their equipment was as worn as they were if they could just finish the mission they could get out of there…

And coming out from around the corner were two more ADVENT soldiers; one in fully sealed orange and black armor with a fuel cell strapped to her back, the other clad in dark grey armor with gold rank accents not unlike those of the ADVENT Officers. An ADVENT Purifier escorting a general.

"There he is!" Kim called as both groups saw each other, and Kim stormed forward as their vanguard. She had to get both of them and fast - his evac was almost ready. Ron could deal with him though - the more immediate threat was the Purifier's flamethrower. It had taken cover opposite of the general, preparing its fuel tank to coat the entire area in fire, but Kim had her barely reloaded and still cooling Storm Gun ready first. All she needed to do was take the shot...

… only for, as she pulled the trigger, something to snap within and the weapon began to spark. Kim knew what was about to happen and hurled the overheated weapon as far as she could before it went critical. She did _not_ want that thing in her hands!

Ron had changed his target as he saw the issue, leaping towards the Purifier with the Lotus Blade in hand and glowing a whitish purple as he sheathed himself with psionic energy as he cut into the Purifier's tank and through her torso, only to vanish in an explosion.

Kim had no time to worry even as her discarded shotgun cooked off as well, dodging to the side as General Karten fired off a burst with his magnetic rifle to try and keep her back. Drawing the Fusion Blade from its back scabbard, she began moving towards him before he decided to drop back with the explosion, tossing a cylinder as he backed out…

"Flashbang!" Kim warned as she managed to cover her eyes before everything went silent with a whine. The flash done, Kim was able to see even if her ears were practically blown out. Somehow, she had avoided being disoriented - panic, fight or flight, dumb luck? She didn't care, she just ran forward as the ADVENT General had dropped into cover and was shouting orders…

And as she came around, the General brought his mag rifle around and Kim cut through the end of the barrel with her fusion blade, severing the weapon and causing it to explode in its user's face. Typical ADVENT mass production.

Not that Karten was ready to go without a fight, but by the time he was Kim had brought the blade down, embedding it into his shoulders and tugged out, leaving a searing hole where his right shoulder had been. Collapsing, the ADVENT traitor fell to his knees, coughing as he tried to backhand her as she approached. Kim easily sidestepped it and struck his helmet with a left hook.

Knocked to the side, the helmet's seals broke as he was slammed into the wall. Groaning as he crawled forward, Kim put her armored boot onto his back with a stomp, but if there was a resounding crack she still couldn't hear. The flashbang hadn't disoriented her, but her hearing was still messed up. Her eyes, however, could still clearly see the man - the unmodified human - who had joined the aliens, and had now paid for betraying his species.

And, as her hearing slowly returned, she keyed her earpiece so she could tell Bradford the good news. But any sense of accomplishment faded as she glanced back to see Ron. While his powers shielded him from the explosion, he had not been as lucky with the flashbang and was stumbling in a daze.

" _Athena 1 … attack … arted … General dead?"_

"General's dead, been flashbanged," Kim answered - shouted really since her hearing was still mucked up. Bradford raised his voice and slowed down, which only made the headache brought on by exhaustion and the battle worse.

" _10-4. Recover the corpse and return to access for evac. Firebrand inbound."_

XXXXXX

 **[End Chapter]**

 _So that was the mission, and really for just novelizing that was where I could end it, but I think the post-mission has a lot to offer. After all, in-game we don't get much of how the soldiers react to their missions. But this was pretty much a mission that should have been skipped because of how difficult it was and the cost in game mechanics alone may not have been quite worth it…_

 _The main challenge with this was adapting the turn-based into real-time, as well as making the aliens more threatening since I did not have the numbers to draw on. As such, the numerous liberties with the combat compared to the game. I wanted to make sure that each one of the aliens (except maybe the trooper variants and the General) were a genuine threat, which meant drawing it out._

 _One thing I did keep more or less the same was that Archon hitting Ron; in game, it was a crit that knocked out nine out of twelve health on him. The overheating Storm Gun was actually a case of me messing up with Serial and forgetting I couldn't also activate run and gun, so it ended up being a dash… figured it was a good way to explain it with my explanation for Rapid Shot being a non-standard option._

 _Also, as a note for those who were confused; the Centurion Bracelets were meant to be the variant used in the DS game Global Gemini, where it served as a tool for Kim to pretty much punch out a couple walls in the way. I always thought that was a perfect way to overcome the limits of Kim's physical ability to punch with regard to Lorwardians without needing her to go full battle suit or power armor, and brought it back here for some variance in melee. Ditto with the Lotus Blade._


End file.
